Arthur Bayldon

Crabs - Poem by Arthur Bayldon

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(On a Queensland Beach)

Poisonous, bloated, crab-like shapesCrawl in gangs around these capes-Stopping here and feeding there,Listening, crawling everywhere;Searching every rotten weedWith a frothing, wild-eyed greed:Fighting o'er a lump of scurfOr a red boil of the earth;Thrusting up their writhing clawsTo their grinning, fiend-like maws.And these horrid creatures wetWith a thick, unwholesome sweatHave most hideous banquets hereOn the poor drowned marineer.Down they hurry eagerlyChittering all the way with glee:They have smelt the tainted airFrom that body festering there.How they twitch their claws and pryInto each distorted eye;How they spit on him with spiteAs their nippers pinch and bite;How they strip him clean and bare,Leaving not a morsel there,Till they're gorged and all squat nearFleshless remnant with a leer.When the billows near them rollEach will scope himself a holeIn the mud-banks, and thereinSleep like an embodied sin.

***In the world so crass and blindHuman crabs feed on their kind:Glutted creatures that devourAll that fall within their power;Skulking each near his own hole,They smell out each human soulTossed up on Life's stony shore,Weary, friendless, weak and poor.